Call for Applications: European Joint Doctorate MOVES – Migration and Modernity: Historical and Cultural Challenges

MOVES is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network project funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

• EJD MOVES has been designed to provide an understanding of the historical, cultural and social roots of migration as a necessary prerequisite for effective political solutions to present migration problems in global terms.
• EJD MOVES’ chief objective is comparative research into the social and cultural roots of mass mobility from the early to the late modernity. Past and present forms of migration are confronted and studied both as a condition of modernity and one of its greatest
• EJD MOVES’ research and training network is based on interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the Humanities and the Social Sciences at five major European universities: Charles University (Univerzita Karlova) Prague, Freie Universität Berlin, Universidade do Porto, University of Kent (including the School of International Studies in Brussels) and Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3.
• EJD MOVES’ innovative training programme is carried out in conjunction with 18 non-academic partners (including NGOs, charities, and the cultural and creative industries).
• EJD MOVES’ distinctive structure hinges on the mobility of Early-Stage Researchers (ESR; the terms “PhD students/candidates” are not used in EJD). They will work full time under contract at two of the five above universities (for 18 months at each of them) and will be seconded to one of the 18 non-academic partners (for 180 hours). This mobility depends on Individual Research Projects (see below).

WHO CAN APPLY?

Early-Stage Researchers (ESR), who must, at the date of recruitment by the beneficiary, be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not been awarded a doctoral degree. They can be of any nationality, but they must have resided or carried out their main activity outside the country of the recruiting university (see above; “recruiting university” is the first university where they will pursue their research and do their training in EJD MOVES) in the 3 years immediately prior to their recruitment. In the case of researchers with refugee status, refugee procedure is not counted as a period of residence/activity in the country of the recruiting university.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE and RELATED INFORMATION

• Submission deadline: 15 February 2019, 23:59. Required documents (see below) will have to be submitted electronically after 15 January 2019 in pdf format to applicationprojectmoves@univ-montp3.fr
• Applicants shortlisted for telephone interviews will be notified by 1 March 2019.
• Telephone interviews will take place on 8 and 9 March 2019.
• All applicants will receive notifications about the results of the selection procedure by 31 March 2019.
• Offer letters will sent by 30 April 2019.
• The recruitment procedure will close and the EJD programme will start on 1 September 2019.

DOCUMENTS TO BE SUBMITTED

• a copy of the passport valid at least until the end of 2019. Applicants with two or more nationalities can use just one passport and apply only once.
• a copy of the degree certificate: Master’s (preferably) or Bachelor’s degree
• detailed transcript with grades and degree classification, and an overview of the national education system in which the degree was obtained
• a current CV (European format, see https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/documents/curriculum-vitae/templates-instructions/templates/doc)
• an IELTS or TOEFL iBT certificate of English language proficiency (does not apply, if the applicant is a native speaker of English)
• two research proposals – each of them 1000 words plus bibliography – justifying the choice of two projects from the list below and demonstrating the applicant’s readiness for the required research.
• letters from two referees attesting to the applicant’s academic standing and potential

NUMBER OF VACANCIES

15 corresponding to the number of Individual Research Projects (see below).

Questions about the selection procedure and other features of EJD MOVES can be addressed to the Project Manager: Mgr. Petra Johana Poncarová.

LIST OF INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PROJECTS – RESEARCH PROPOSALS

All submitted research proposals must describe and specify TWO projects chosen from the list below. They must demonstrate the applicant’s commitment to each of them and describe the research in terms of its objectives, scope, material, methodology, sources and schedule.

(In the table below participating universities are referred to by their locations: Charles University = Prague.)

1	Host institutions: Kent, Porto	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Pre-Migration: Motivations and Individual Dispositions
Objectives: Uncovering significant patterns of individual decisions to emigrate
Expected Results: Typological description of these patterns based on various types of verbal and visual sources
2	Host institutions: Kent, Berlin	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Society and the Cultural Drivers of Migration
Objectives: Developing an indicative framework for the socio-economic conditions favouring migration
Expected Results: New theoretical tools to anticipate future migration flows
3	Host institutions: Kent, Montpellier	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Historical Migration Flows in an Economic and Political Perspective
Objectives: Defining the decisive socio-economic and political factors contributing to migratory mobility
Expected Results: Comparative data of migration flows across time and space
4	Host institutions: Berlin, Kent	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Functions of Travel and Types of Migration
Objectives: Describing relationships between historical and present travel, colonization and globalization, and types of migration
Expected Results: A typology of migration compared to specific functions of travel
5	Host institutions: Berlin, Porto	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Forms of Displacement in Past and Present
Objectives: Defining major forms of displacement and dislocation in relation to travel, migration, colonization and globalization
Expected Results: Description of different forms of displacement and dislocation caused by modern travel, colonization, globalization
6	Host institutions: Berlin, Prague	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Types of Migration in Their Relation to Forms of Slavery
Objectives: Defining relationships between different phases and types of slavery and the patterns and events of migration
Expected Results: Description of functional relationships between different forms of slavery and types of migration
7	Host institutions: Porto, Kent	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Cultural Encounters, Early to Late Modernity: Patterns and Challenges
Objectives: Defining contact zones and modes of integration in past and present-day cultural encounters
Expected Results: Identification of contact zones and modes of integration; revision of theories on intercultural communication
8	Host institutions: Porto, Prague	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Intermediation, Intercommunication: Go-Betweens and Translators
Objectives: Defining the roles of intermediaries from go-betweens to current organisations working with migrants
Expected Results: Description of specific rituals, intermediaries and instances of cultural translation during encounters
9	Host institutions: Porto, Montpellier	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: ‘Clash of Cultures’? A Case Study and a Critique
Objectives: Establishing typologies of early cultural encounters to develop structured understanding of more recent encounters
Expected Results: Revision of theories and models for the study of cultural encounters leading to the understanding of recent encounters
10	Host institutions: Montpellier, Prague	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Methodologies of Historical Transformations in Modern Travel, Globalisation and Migration Processes
Objectives: Establishing patterns of transformations catalysed by modern travel, globalisation and migration processes
Expected Results: Developing an interdisciplinary methodology assessing historical transformations catalysed by travel and migration
11	Host institutions: Montpellier, Porto	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Invariant Features of Transformations Caused by Migration
Objectives: Defining invariant features of past and recent historical changes caused by migration, modern travel, and globalization
Expected Results: Understanding present-day migration processes through invariant features of migratory mobility
12	Host institutions: Montpellier, Berlin	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: The Impact of Migration on Historical Change and Its Interpretation
Objectives: Defining patterns of political and cultural thought emerging from the comparison between past and present migration flows
Expected Results: Interpretation of cultural and social changes caused or catalysed by recent migration processes
13	Host institutions: Prague, Montpellier	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Myths of Migration and Their Significance in Past and Present
Objectives: Comparing historical and recent myths of migration to establish their significance in past and present
Expected Results: Determining general patterns of migration myths and their functioning in historiography, literature, theatre and film
14	Host institutions: Prague, Berlin	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Typology of Migration Myths: Theoretical/Methodological Questions
Objectives: Designing a typology of migration myths and histories in modernity
Expected Results: A typological approach facilitating the understanding of historical and artistic narratives of migration
15	Host institutions: Prague, Kent	Duration: 18+18 months
Project Title: Representations of Migrants: Discursive Features
Objectives: Describing the major discursive features of the representations of migration and migrants
Expected Results: A systematic analysis of the discursive features of migration and travel narratives in verbal and visual art

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 812764.